Diplo FaceTimes Zane Lowe on Apple Music to chat about about how he’s been spending his time in quarantine, practising guitar and trying to finish Major Lazer album. He also chats about his love for Charli XCX and Pearl Jam, his thoughts on the state of modern hip hop, having a democratic approach to crafting his DJ sets and more. The two are also joined by Marcus Mumford of Mumford and Sons who reflects on the making of his collaboration with Major Lazer on “Lay Your Head on Me”.
On How He Hasn’t Been Home This Long Since He Was 24 Years Old…
I haven't been home this long since I was 24-years-old. This is three weeks at my house and I've seen parts of my house I never knew existed. I've been in closets. I was like, "Where did this come from?" I was like, "Who's this person that lives here?" I was like, "I never even seen you before." There was like... It's a weird place this house and I might have to sell it when this is over. But in the meantime, I'm actually so refreshed by not leaving. I thank God I finished all my music. We were about to go on a whole tour to promote everything. We had the Major Lazer takeovers where we did three shows in London, Paris, Munich, Germany. We had all these ideas and we had this whole set put together. I think at least now we have to be behind the music 100%. At least I got all my music done and it's coming out slowly during this period and it might be awkward period, but I just go with it. I got to make the best out of what I'm doing and I'm happy. I'm happy to be at home honestly, I never felt like I'd say that, but I like it.
On His Love For Charli XCX…
Her personality is just so exciting, she's got so much charisma. She actually had to borrow headphones to do her DJ mix and she made me actually throw them out the window, she's so in that quarantine life. Because she lives really close to me, we're neighbors and I threw them at her out the window and I made sure I scrubbed them for her.
On Being Reckless At Past Shows…
It's been awhile and it's also because of the insurance. I don't want to ever get in trouble. But we were pretty reckless for a while and luckily nobody got hurt at my shows. But I did go pretty deep in the crowd once in my inflatable ball to where it was a muddy show and nobody could bring me up cause the people were all slipping and I kept getting further. The Further I got in the crowd, I was either going to fall off and I had to get back to stage, because you only have two minutes to air in that thing. I had to like... I was just working my way back on the crowd and trying walking in the people who didn't see me. I'm just trying to get to the front of the crowd so I can get on unzipped and I'm like, "Uh.”
On His Love of Pearl Jam’s 'Vs.’…
Oh my god, that was one of my first CDs ever. That album had hits man… “Even Flow”, “Alive”… I remember the b-sides, I was such a fan of that Pearl Jam sound.I was like obsessed with him, his voice and the videos were crazy. No, but he took rock into a different world. I mean I feel like... I don't know. I'm not the biggest rock aficionado, but for me I saw that and I was like, "Wow this is crazy."
On The State of Hip Hop and Listening To Music Democratically as a DJ...
There's just too much of it, and a lot of it just copies. It's like the same songs, kind of like copy each other. Lil Uzi Vert's album was like the first refreshing album I heard in a long time, but the JackBoys album was really dope, and kind of underrated, because people were like waiting for the next thing to happen. They don't give hip hop like a real chance to listen anymore. People just kind of let hip hop replace itself over and over again. We expect it to come so fast, which also makes a lot of rappers kind of like lazy. When I was first getting to hip hop, people spent a year putting their album together, a year touring it, and now it's just single after single, kind of TikTok based, or whatever. But that JackBoys album was great, Uzi Vert's album was great, because I had had some of a bad taste of the hip hop, the last two years. Just wasn't a lot of good projects coming out. Like that felt like they lasted, you know? It takes me some time, but I never rule anything out. I never put like a judgment on a project, because of whatever I feel, whatever the scene is, I always listen to things very democratically like you do. Because we're DJs, we're musicians, and that's our job to like really translate. I might be in my own mind, but when it comes to DJing, I'm steered by what music works.
On Using This Time To Finish The Major Lazer Album and Practice Guitar…
I haven't been like writing new music, because I'm still just in the studio finishing up the Major Lazer album. I'm tidying things up, but I've been like playing a lot of guitar and learning that, which is I would never ever, ever do that, unless it's like literally someone made me do it. That's what was happening right now. Like I never... It's just not in my thing to learn something new anymore. I'm too old. I feel like I have to be forced into doing it and that's literally what's happening. I'm forced into doing this, which is awesome, because I need it.
On Genre Bending Sets and Tailoring His Sets To The Crowd…
Jamie XX was first starting to play Tame Impala and that was a real breakthrough for that project. Because DJs were like, "I can do something else with this record and have it groove." Arcade Fire always reminded me of like good Fleetwood Mac, just like that vibe. For me, I mean, it could be some trap records. I take them slowly and then I introduce some... Things change. I was playing a lot of hip hop last year and this year I'm playing a lot more house music, just because I got into that groove. I got to think about that, because there's a lot bro. I'm slow on a lot of records. When you're doing Vegas and you're playing like for certain crowds that's like more mainstream, it's different than when I'm playing underground parties, or when I'm doing Major Lazer, where we just take all the songs and put it how we want it. We just give it to you how we, how we translate it and that's our show.
On Collaborating With Marcus Mumford and The Fusion of Their Sounds…
People always asked me, "What's your fantasy to have a collaboration with?" And I'm always like, "I don't really care." It could be anybody as long as there's chemistry. I think when you put Major Lazer and Mumford and Sons or Marcus Mumford on paper, you're like, "What the hell are you guys going to do? What the hell could this be?" But that's what makes it awesome, because it's just about two guys who love to make music, two groups that are great at making music and we're going to come up with something. We're going to come up with something that works for us and I don't think it could have been a better fusion of sounds. In fact, when I teased him in the studio with me playing guitar a little bit when we were working on the demo, I have never seen so much interaction on my Instagram. Mr. Easy was like, "Oh my God, I love Marcus Mumford," or some models were like, "I love Marcus Mumford." Rappers were like, "Wow, that guy's great."
